[Dietrich Burke] *Dietrich was sitting on a bench watching the people walk by in Grant Park. He was a young man, early twenties, with a lean muscular build, buzz cut black hair, and hazel grayish eyes.
His bones structure, flawless skin, and regal bearing even now marked him for those who knew about such things as a more pure member of his culture, the deeds of his ancestors evident in his genetic make-up.
He was leaning back on the bench, arms spread across the back, legs kicked out in a relaxed posture. He knew no one would come to sit with him, and the couple times people tried once they’d got close enough they turned quickly away, moving on to less… frightening company.
So Dietrich sat, and watched, dressed in his comfortable untucked collared shirt, blue jeans, and black combat boots as the world passed him by, one that he was spectator instead of a participant.*
[Maija] It’s too hot for the hoodie, though it’s tied around her waist, a backpack slung over her shoulder that looks mostly empty. Her beat to hell boots make little to no sound, and her features are hidden under the shadow of a baseball cap that is pulled low, creating shadows across her face. Her steps are smooth, easy, the strides of one used to walking long distances without a break – and the thinness of her frame suggests that she certainly isn’t wanting for exercise, though she may very well be wanting for a meal.
She makes her way down the path, seeming to pay little attention to anything, anyone, though in reality she’s hyper aware of everyone she passes. Her fingers, slender and pale, are wrapped around the strap of her pack, while her left hand is tucked into the pocket of threadbare jeans that barely cling to sparce hips.
[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen has no skill to read breeding in Garou or other Kinfolk. None of her kind – which she has called ‘half-bloods’ more than once – can. But a few of them have learnt to read Rage – and she has enough of her own pure blood, enough of her own ancestry that she stands out amidst the mortals. Amidst the flock, as they are.
It makes it hard for her to remain hidden from the eyes of the Nation. Even without these details, she is a beautiful woman, pale skin like alabaster, hair bright as fire and eyes extraordinarily dark.
She walks near a pair of humans, unassociated from their conversation by both affect and dress. She is dressed for business – a knee-length white skirt, a matching suit jacket both in linen, moving lightly with her strides. Her blouse is black, silk, her sandals black, her handbag black. The sunglasses which hide her eyes are – one can guess the colour, the lenses mid-dark for the over cast weather. The people in front of her are dressed in shorts, t-shirts, carrying cameras, the paraphernalia of tourism.
She carries a coffee cup in hand, a pure denizen of the city, or at least comfortable enough to fake it at first glance. The people in front shy as they pass Dietrich. Hidden behind her glasses, Imogen’s eyes move to them, then to the man on the bench.
The rhythm of her footfall shifts slightly, a stutter in her stride, but she does not shy away.
[Dietrich Burke] *Dietrich looks at Imogen and tilts his head, raising an eyebrow, face stoic curious as to this woman with good breeding who doesn’t shy away. She could be Garou or kin as he doesn’t know every single member of this new sept.* “If I asked you to have a seat and chat with me for bit would you be frightened, offended, both or neither?”
[Imogen Slaughter] What has begun as slowing becomes a full-top, her heeled sandals clicking softly on the asphalt beneath her foot.
She looks at the Garou – her gaze resting upon him for a moment or two before a hand lifts to push her glasses up from her eyes, setting them back on the swept back pillow of her hair.
“Neither,” she says in a tone that says nothing. There is a pause, a beat.
Then, “New here, are you?”
[Maija] There are many that shy away from Dietrich, and this gets the beautiful redhead’s attention – as well as Maija’s, as she’s moving toward them from the opposite direction. She considers a detour, but the tree she wants to sit under is just past them, and thus she continues.
There is an undeniable tension in her shoulders, in the set of her lips, in the way her head is angled to keep them from catching anything other than a passing glimpse of shadowed features. She is one used to hiding, used to being unnoticed.
[Dietrich Burke] *He nods, and straightens up, leaning forward resting his forearms on his knees. He gestures for her to have a seat.* “Please.” *a beat.* “Dietrich Burke.”
[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen casts a glance toward where he gestures, before turning to take a seat, her hand smoothing beneath the line of her backside and thigh, an absent gesture to set her skirt to rights as she sits.
“Imogen Slaughter,” she says, her voice low, lyrical with the remnants of her accent which has not faded in years in America.
“Met anyone yet?”
[Dietrich Burke] *He nods.* “A few. I was at the Bonfire. I got there late with my pack. *He exhales, and rubs his head.* “Correction former packmates.” *He says frowning a bit.* “So I met a few people, no one by name though really.”
[Maija] The woman decides to share a bench with the man that people sway away from, and she keeps her steps steady and even. She does not shy away, neither does she pause, her fingers tightening around the strap of her backpack slightly as she comes even, than with another step, two, moves past.
It’s no mistake that her gaze seems to be angled away from them as she does so, either.
[Imogen Slaughter] Former pack, he says, and Imogen’s eyebrow moves slightly, the start of an arch, then stills again.
“You were wi’ the blonds,” she says, her memory serving her belatedly. “Am I right?”
[Dietrich Burke] *He nods.* “I was.” *He looks at her, studying her face for a moment raising an eyebrow.* “The big man, hair cut like mine. You were with him I think. He tried to trip Sinclair.”
[Henry Allard] It is surprisingly difficult to run for three miles one way when one hasn’t been sleeping very well. Stubbornness, persistence, willpower, none of those things are strong enough to keep a body going when sleep has been a distant memory for several days, and even though he’s been plodding along for a while he should have stopped by now.
He’s working on it. He’s on the last leg of his self-imposed torture, and out of the distance comes yet another sound of feet slapping despite the heat and the humidity and the threat of rain. He is drenched in sweat, pale, yet he keeps moving despite the fact that he looks like he’s about to drop.
[Imogen Slaughter] There is a barely definable pause. Imogen’s gaze moves away, and comes to rest upon Maija as she moves past. Her dark gaze rests upon the slight girl as she passes; Maija is doing her best to be unnoticed. She does not quite get that but she does get as far as being considered inconsequential. With her hood, Imogen does not recognize her as the girl in the Brotherhood.
She returns her attention to Dietrich. A few seconds have passed.
“Decker Rohl,” she supplies. It’s a name which is likely familiar.
[Dietrich Burke] *He nods his head at the name.* “I’ve heard of him. His name has reached New York.” *He looks at Maija, a glance and then, back out to the scenery.* “Is it going to be a problem then if I am speaking with you?” *He looks back at Imogen. Garou were funny about those things, they could get very territorial of their mates, or kin. He didn’t know what she was to Decker, but they were together when he saw them.*
[Maija] Decker Rohl.
The name is what brings a hitch to her steps, something that she recognizes, and dark eyes turn to look at Imogen, as she is the one who supplied the hint of familiar. She perhaps remembers her from the Brotherhood, now, belatedly. There are a great many people who move in and out the doors, and 99% of them cause Maija to wish she’d hide in her room for the rest of her likely short life.
In the distance the sound of a runner, and she looks that way, to see if it is a runner who does so on purpose, for the sake of running and nothing else. Judging that he does, she glances at the pair on the bench again, and remembers to take another step.
[Henry Allard] Up in the distance there is bench occupied by only one person, one familiar if he’s willing to ignore the fact that the man from the Bohemian café and the bonfire looks just about as generically handsome as any other Get of Fenris or Silver Fang male that Henry has ever met in his life and we’re willing to ignore the fact that both times Henry has been in the same general vicinity as the man on the bench the running kinsman has either been drunk off his ass or high as a kite.
Standing in front of him is the slight form of the woman who even after two and a half years Henry wouldn’t call more than an acquaintance, a colleague if he were attempting a real show of clinical detachment, and nearby is a girl in a sweatshirt he doesn’t recognize off-hand.
Henry isn’t running as though he’s being chased today. He just trots, and as he grows nearer to the group he slows down. His panting can be heard from some distance, and he reaches up a bare left hand to wipe sweat off of his face. Normally shaggy light brown hair is plastered down and turned dark by sweat, and he coughs raggedly.
“Hey,” he huffs, wiping his hand on his t-shirt. It’s soaked through just about everywhere. It’s too fucking hot for this and he hasn’t been drinking enough water.
[Imogen Slaughter] “No,” Imogen’s response is edged. “Thankfully, I am permitted to speak to speak to whomever I wish, so long as I don’t take candy from strangers.”
Her sarcasm is distinct.
Maija pauses – Imogen sees it out of the corner of her eye and turns to look at the girl fully, this time able to catch sight of the kin’s features. Henry distracts her briefly, a flick of the kin’s dark eyed gaze taking in his sweaty, spindly countenance, “Hey,” she says in a tone of someone speaking to get the word out of the way before she turns, addressing Maija as she tries to beat her quick retreat, “Brotherhood, wasn’t it?”
Imogen has never ceased to marvel at how kinfolk and Garou manage to gather in one place so quickly.
[Dietrich Burke] *Dietrich looks at Imogen, and cracks a half smile at her wry comment. He looks at Maija sizing her up for a bit, and then Henry. He tilts his head, and raises an eyebrow looking at the jogger trying to place his face, something familiar… maybe… *
[Maija] And beat it she does. That step is halted, and she glances around, as if to be sure she does not place her back to something ready to rip out her spine, and then turns to face the redhead. She takes that step now, that allows her to get somwhat within talking distance, so that she does not need to raise her voice.
Though one wonders if she’d ever do that in the first place… if that, too, has been beaten from her.
“Yes’um.” Polite, if grammatically incorrect. “Mr. Rohl, he sent me there.”
If Dietrich’s gaze makes her uneasy, she does her best to hide it, though the tension in her shoulders ratchets a notch higher.
[Henry Allard] His hands go to his hips for a brief moment as Imogen speaks to him quickly, and though his brow quirks for a moment in amused confusion he doesn’t appear slighted.
There is nothing remarkable about the man momentarily paused in his run. He’s tall, sure, but these days it seems like everyone involved in the Nation is tall; he tops out at 6’4″ in his running shoes, and he’s skinny as hell, his legs bird-like and his arms lean and roped with veins. There isn’t much to his torso, either, yet he looks as though he’s got some strength to him underneath that unfortunate build of his.
Imogen speaks to the hiding girl, the Garou on the bench just quirks an eyebrow at Henry, who suddenly looks sheepish, as if he’s inadvertently interrupted something. The bruises under his eyes are a disgusting color of purple that shouldn’t exist.
With a nod to everyone or no one, Henry drops his hold on his sharp hips and starts walking east, taking slow, deep breaths as if to restart his respiratory rate and prepare the rest of him to complete the cycle of abuse he’d started.
[Maija] (taking the kid to work – brb)
[Dietrich Burke] *Dietrich says to Henry, possible breaking a little bit of his stoic demeanor as a bit of concern break though.* “You don’t have to leave guy.” *He tilts his chin up.* “You’re not interrupting anything.” *He looks at Maija and gestures for her to have a seat next to him.* “Please.”
[Imogen Slaughter] (post around me for a few minutes! eating)
[Maija] (back)
[Dietrich Burke] (wb)
[Maija] Dark eyes look at Dietrich, as he suggests [neverasuggestionalwaysanorder] that she sit next to him, and Henry starts to move away. If Imogen were not sitting there, she might have kept moving, but the woman knows Decker Rohl, and he helped her once.
So she takes a seat.
Next to Imogen – placing the woman between herself and Dietrich.
“Yeah, alright.”
[Dietrich Burke] *BEEP, BEEP, BEEP… He takes his blackberry out of his pocket, and checks it.* “Sorry folks. Duty calls. Nice meeting all of you.” *And with that he gets up, and trots down the path, blackberry still in his right hand.*
[Dietrich Burke] (Thanks for the scene.)
[Henry Allard] It isn’t the concern that makes Henry stop so much as it is the fact that the man speaks up in the first place, halting the tall runner mid-step. He doesn’t falter or waver any but he looks as though he needs to sit his bony ass down before gravity does it for him. He doesn’t sit, though. He just turns to regard the seated Garou and wipes his mouth on the back of his left hand before speaking.
He’s cut off, though, by Dietrich’s beeper and the man’s dashing off. Henry watches him for a moment before remarking, “I am never going to get that guy’s name.”
[Imogen Slaughter] Dietrich leaves, after bidding both Henry and Maija to stay. Imogen watches him go, an eyebrow arching, an expression that approaches wryness crossing her features.
“Dietrich Burke,” she answers Henry as she turns back, a hand lifting to her hair, pushing strands back from her eyes. “He mentioned it earlier.”
A smirk crosses her mouth, “Curiosity satisfied, I hope.”
Her gaze flicks toward Maija, “Yeh don’t ha’ t’stay,” she says, “but yeh can if yeh want.”
[Maija] She watches as Dietrich ups and leaves, after having her sit, and there’s a flicker of something in her gaze, there and then gone again, before it can be fully recognized. The woman and the jogger apparently know each other, and Imogen gives her an out, one that she considers taking.
But Dietrich does not return, and there’s some matter of ease suddenly in her torso, allowing her to sag back against the bench, slightly. Not that kinfolk men have any higher regard for her well being – but Henry looks like he’s about to drop. Harmless. (…lookscanbedeceiving…)
“Yeah, alright.” A pause, and then she supplies her name. “I’m Maija.” Mi-yah. It rolls easily enough off her tongue that it might actually be hers. Or not.
[Henry Allard] A dry, exhausted laugh leaves Henry’s throat. It doesn’t have the freedom and the looseness of the laughter that he was producing last weekend at the bonfire, when he had to cover his mouth to keep from growing too loud. The man had been stoned and on his way to becoming inebriated on top of it and he had still taken pains to control the volume of his voice when others around them couldn’t have been bothered.
Imogen turns to Maija before he can say whether or not that satisfied his curiosity, and he tasks himself with getting his wind back, with getting that dizzy cast out of his eyes. One would think he would have sat down already, but one would also have to know that his concern with hygiene and cleanliness has stopped him from shaking many a stranger’s hand when he’s been out running. So he doesn’t sit next to Maija. He doesn’t even sit on the arm of the bench. He just unlocks his knees and swipes his face again.
He’s sweating like an ice-filled glass left out in the sun.
[Imogen Slaughter] “Imogen,” the slight doctor replies, “And the obsessive runner is Henry.” A tilt of her chin clarifies precisely whom she means. “It’s a pleasure.”
A sideways glance at Henry – perhaps the kinswoman is verifying that he is still standing.
[Maija] She nods, slightly – it’s barely a moment at all. A flick of her gaze between Imogen and Henry, then back again. “Ya know Mr. Rohl? I mean, since ya mentioned…”
She trails off, as if unused to asking questions she’s not ridiculed – or worse – for daring to voice.
[Henry Allard] The obsessive runner is Henry.
“Guilty,” he says, dryly, before coughing into the back of his right wrist. That’s when the beige 4×4 bandage on his forearm reveals himself; his sweat appears to have loosened whatever clotting was going on underneath the bandage, for there is a line of dark red underneath the padding. It disappears a moment later as he puts his hands back on his hips and flicks his lichen-colored eyes between the two women.
The question isn’t meant for him, and he finally abandons whatever idiotic play at stoicism he’d been making and seats himself on the arm of the bench, balancing with one leg bent and the other straight out. He sniffs and lowers his gaze, but doesn’t butt in.
[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen sees the bandage – it is utterly undeniable in the way her gaze moves and rests upon it, in the way her eyes lift to look the Gaian kin in the eye.
She says nothing, merely turns her attention to Maija.
“I know him well enough tha’ I suspect yeh were likely told not to call him Mister Rohl,” she observes.
[Maija] That gets a flicker of amusement – it crosses through her eyes, over her face, even as she turns to look the other way until it is gone – which is less than a second, truth be told. “Yessum.”
She doesn’t say that it is habit, that it is something she can’t control without paying a good deal of attention, that something so well beaten into you is automatic. She just agrees. “Also tole me not t’rob a house he was watchin, an I ain’t no thief. Some thin’s jus’ habit, on both sides.”
[Henry Allard] It isn’t until Imogen makes eye contact that Henry realizes what it is she’s looking at him for, and his eyes flick in the direction of his wrist as if he’d forgotten it was there. That only hastens his hiding of the injury; he says nothing about it, and he appears to be content pretending that Imogen hadn’t actually seen it.
Suddenly and clearly self-conscious, Henry stands back up, rubs his lower jaw with his left hand, then waves a motionless wave.
“Have a good night, ladies,” he says, turning to go.
[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen turns her head to look at Henry as he gets to his feet. “Goodnight, then,” she says, simply, lifting her take-out coffee to take a sip.
It’s gone cold. She grimaces, turning away to toss the cup into a nearby trash receptacle.
[Maija] Henry abruptly waves and turns to go, and Maija just watches for a long moment, before lifting a hand to rub absently at the line of her jaw. “S’like I stink or somethin… actually say a word, an’ folks run off.”
No wonder she often doesn’t bother.
[Henry Allard] There’s a stiffness in the way he starts to lope off, as if he’s aware he’s being watched or as if there’s something suddenly weighing down on him as he goes; it isn’t Maija this time, was nothing that she did or said, but he doesn’t appear overly concerned with sticking around to clarify that he is taking off because someone noticed the bandage on his arm and if he has to explain to more than one person what happened that night he’s liable to lose what’s left of his marbles.
So he does what he’s been doing for half his life, now. He runs.
[Henry Allard] [Thanks for the scene, gals!]
[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen casts a glance at the younger girl, “I don’t believe it had anything t’do with you,” she says simply. “And he smells strongly enough himself.”
[Maija] She looks over at Imogen, briefly, then over the park. Now that it’s just them, the tension bleeds from her shoulders, her body relaxes in a way it couldn’t quite do with the men around, with rage around. Had Imogen the latter – she would make an excuse as well. Instead, she leans back and takes a low, soft breath.
“Suppose so.”
A pause as she lifts her hand and tugs that cap dow a little lower, and shifts the strap of her tanktop back onto her shoulder. Then. “Ya his kin then? Rohl’s?” It’s a compromise. At least she dropped the ‘mr.’.
[Imogen Slaughter] If Imogen notices that Maija’s tension has fled her, she makes no comment, barely more than a glance of dark blue eyes, nearly black now in the setting sun. She removes her sunglasses, sliding them into the opening of her purse and sliding the zipper shut.
The question brings her eyes back to the girl-kin, a moment’s regard.
“The Nation would call me so, yes,” she says after a beat, her phrasing and voice even.
[Maija] A brow lifts, but just barely, as she looks toward Imogen. “An ya ain’t say so, then?” There’s something there – respect, maybe. A touch of confusion, possibly, but mostly the former. “I get that.”
The Nation says many things about her, too. And all that she’s heard – none of it is ever good. “Ain’t mean no disrespect.”
[Imogen Slaughter] “I’m not the Nation,” is her reply. Imogen is not quite frosty, but she is remote. Her answers as tempered, even, carefully phrased.
“No disrespect,” she says, a hand lifting to smooth her hair in the wake in the removal of her sunglasses, tucking strands behind her ears. “S’just the way it is.”
[Maija] “Yeah.” Imogen’s words are carefully chosen, remote. Maija’s are no less carefully chosen, questions that are asked take an iron will at times, and it’s rare hat she exerts that much effort. If asked why she does so now, she wouldn’t be able to answer. Oddly, of all the Garou she has met since arriving, of all the kinfolk, of all the people – Decker, the one she likely should be terrified of is the one she once moved closer too, unconsciously seeking protection from. Maybe it was something in the way he talked to her, something in the way he looked at her that was different than what she expected – something. Other than Ryan…
….Ryan.
Thoughts of those lost creep up at the most inopportune times, and this is one of them. She takes a moment and pushes those thoughts away.
“They ain’t say much nice bout folks like me. S’just the way it is.”
[Imogen Slaughter] A kinder person might ask what is said about Maija, perhaps make the motions of defending her from the inequality of the world, the cruelty of it all.
Imogen merely studies her a moment, then nods, getting to her feet.
“Yeh want a drive back t’the Brotherhood,” she asks before lifting her chin in the direction Maija’d been headed, “or yeh just goin’ t’keep heading on?”
[Maija] She shakes her head, and pulls her pack around to her lap once Imogen stands and suggests a ride. “Nah, thanks. Appreciate th’offer.”
She glances up, and the way she had been headed, and the tree there, as she unzips the first pocket of her backpack and pulls out an artists journal. “I’ll stick a while.”
[Imogen Slaughter] The dark eyed woman’s gaze flicks toward the artist’s journal, then she merely nods. “Enjoy,” she says, before turning away and walking down the pathway toward one of the parking lot.